Opportunity to learn

(2003), in a similar study using TIMSS 1995 data, found significant (albeit small) effects. Lavy (2010), however, analyzing the PISA 2006 database and additional Israeli data, reported modest to large effects associated with one more hour of weekly instruction on average. Using data from TIMSS 1995, Martin, Mullis, Gonzalez, Smith, and Kelly (1999) reported that in high-performing countries, students tend to spend more time in schools and have more instructional time than in lower-performing countries. Relevant analyses were carried out by Sandoval-Her-nández, Aghakasiri, Wild, and Rutkowski (2013) on PIRLS 2006 data from 45 countries. While the authors didn’t find a consistent relation between the yearly overall schooling time and read-ing achievement, they found a far stronger relation in many countries when correlatread-ing solely the effective teaching time (the time the teacher spent to instruction as opposed to time spent on administration and other tasks) with student achievement. This finding again gives clear indi-cation that the amount of time is not necessarily a factor on its own, but rather should be re-garded in conjunction with other important, interrelated factors, such as the opportunities to learn and the quality of teaching. It should be noted that for the current analyses, due to the absence of suitable data, only indicators for the overall available time can be created, but not specifically for the amount of time the teacher actually focuses on instruction.

At the school level (often based on policies implemented on a regional or national level) the time for learning is mainly determined by the time scheduled for instruction, depending on the duration and amount of lessons per subject, and the school days per year. It should be noted that the prescribed time for learning might differ significantly from the actual amount of time stu-dents are taught because of external circumstances such as unplanned school closings, for ex-ample due to severe weather conditions, civil unrest, teacher absenteeism, etc.

conducted in 1964 and 1980-1982, respectively. Opportunity to learn has applicablility relating to different levels of education. On a contextual level (usually a national or regional level), decisions about general learning objectives and content are made; this is usually referred to in IEA studies and elsewhere as the intended curriculum. A level below, the implemented curric-ulum refers to what is actually taught in the schools/classrooms, largely impacting the oppor-tunity to attain the goal specified in the curriculum. Finally, the attained curriculum relates to the formal learning experiences of students. The attained or experienced curriculum refers to the knowledge and skills achieved. More information regarding these curriculum concepts can be found for example in Travers & Weinzweig’s Studies in mathematics education series: Vol.

11 (Travers & Weinzweig, 1999).

The concept of opportunity to learn, as relating solely to the content of education, has been expanded in more recent policy debates, especially in the U.S., by integrating process indicators looking at how the content was presented and who presented it (McDonnell, 1995). In doing so, the concept became partly mixed with other dimensions – being associated with, for exam-ple, the quality of education and time; the focus therefore has somewhat shifted towards ac-countability and policy issues.

In more recent applications, opportunity to learn is defined as “The opportunities which schools provide students to learn what is expected of them,” especially regarding their learning and progress concerning information for which they will be held accountable (Herman, Klein, &

Abedi, 2000). Following this concept, opportunity to learn would comprise the following cate-gories according to Boscardin et al. (2005, pp. 309–311):

• Curriculum content with the dimensions content coverage (the extent to which stu-dents cover the curriculum for a certain grade level or subject), content exposure (the time devoted to instruction and the depth of teaching), and content emphasis (defines the topics that are selected for emphasis and the emphasis on lower or higher order skills)

• Instructional strategies including the quality of instructional delivery (presentations of the lessons)

• Instructional resources (whether there are appropriate resources to prepare students for success)

• General assessment preparation

While all categories listed above are considered to be important determinants of educational effectiveness, this thesis will rather follow the originally defined concept of opportunity to learn, similarly to Creemers (1994) or Creemers and Kyriakides (2008), and will cover catego-ries added later – such as instructional strategies and assessment preparation – instead under the header of Quality of teaching.

Opportunity to learn, in the original sense, is usually measured by checking whether topics presented in a test were also present in the students’ education. The IEA study TIMSS asks about the perceived preparation level of teachers concerning various topics presented in the assessment, as well as for specifics regarding when and for how long a certain topic was taught/

introduced to the sampled students. Likewise, emphasis given to each subdomain is measured.

As teachers do not always follow the curriculum prescribed, classroom observation would be a more valid technique to assess the content coverage, according to Creemers (1994).

The concept of opportunity to learn has been included in several IEA studies (Comber &

Keeves, 1973; Postlethwaite & Wiley, 1992), but also in other research projects. For example, Boscardin et al. (2005) and Wang (1998) found the opportunity to learn to be related closely to achievement in different subjects. Jones, Davenport, Bryson, Bekhuis, and Zwick (1986), when reanalyzing the High school and Beyond study data, found that the level and number of courses were strongly related with improvements in student outcomes, especially in mathematics, even after controlling for student background factors and aptitude. These conclusions, as well as the findings from the IEA SIMS study, led McDonnell (1995, p. 308) to conclude that “…curricu-lum exposure could be an effective lever in efforts to improve student achievement and to dis-tribute learning opportunities more equitably.”

Opportunity to learn can also be regarded from a perspective of social equity. A curriculum may differentiate between different student groups when implemented via tracking on school level or ability grouping on class level. This, in turn, can limit or enhance access to the content to learn – producing different learning opportunities for different groups of students. In coun-tries with a tracked student system, opportunities to learn have been found to be more closely related to student achievement (Creemers & Kyriakides, 2008); Oakes (1990) also found a strong relation between social groups and course level. Minority students, for example, were usually placed in low-track classes, leading to a lack of equal opportunities for different student groups. Oakes (1990) opines that these differences in opportunity limit instructions, and there-fore argues against tracking systems and ability grouping.

In summary, it can be concluded that the concepts of time on task and opportunity to learn are closely interrelated, and that the definition of the latter concept in particular varied over time and among researchers. However, there seems to be common agreement that, in addition to the amount of time students are actively involved in the learning process, certain opportunities also need to be available to allow for effective learning. Moreover, factors related to the quality of the instruction and the learning environments are also fundamental to an effective learning pro-cess. These dimensions will be discussed in subsequent sections of this chapter.